


Annuals and Perennials

by Meadow Lion (Meadow_Lion)



Category: Imagine Me & You (2005)
Genre: Age Difference, Aged-Up Character, Angst and Humor, F/M, Future Fic, Romantic Friendship
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2009-12-23
Updated: 2009-12-23
Packaged: 2017-10-05 03:00:49
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,800
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/37095
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Meadow_Lion/pseuds/Meadow%20Lion
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>This, as my recipient requested, is about "H and Heck falling in love down the road (way way down the road)."  It presupposes that H was 8 in the 2005 movie.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Annuals and Perennials

**Author's Note:**

  * For [partypaprika](https://archiveofourown.org/users/partypaprika/gifts).



> Any mistakes are mine alone.

{2023}

She thinks it's a trick of her imagination at first, but after a moment she's certain.

"I wonder," H calls at the back of a man several people ahead in the ticket queue, "is there an excuse in the world for the existence of any cheese but Stilton? Really, does anybody need another?"

As he turns, the visible edge of Heck's grin broadens into a full smile, gleaming even in the shadows beneath the marquee. He steps out and back into the queue beside her as though stitching closed a seam. "So, your inquisitions now have you maligning innocent curds."

She snorts. "There's nothing innocent about brie. All that sticky mess surrounded by mould? They might as well have had done with and called it 'tart' instead."

"And you'd know from tarts?" He laughs outright at her expression, and hauls her into his arms. "God, it's good to see you, babe."

Her cheek brushes the stubbly beard he's let grow on his, bristle over softness and warmth throughout, before her head tucks against the smooth wool of his coat. She inhales a burst of his scent. It's the same as ever: thyme and heat, heat and time. She leans back and fills her lungs with the damp chill of London-early-winter air. "You, too, Heck."

"You look wonderful, by the way. How long has it been, four or --?"

"Six years," she says, stepping backward just far enough for his grip to slacken and fall from her shoulders. Her mouth might be frozen in a grimace or even a bizarre smile; she can't feel it either way. "It's been six years."

Not since the first day on the roof, when she'd thought a sack of pick 'n' mix could turn the world right; that was eighteen years and a lifetime ago. Since the last day they saw each other, though, it's been six years.

~*~*~

{2011}

"Just once, c'mon," Natesh said, probably intending to sound entreating but, rather, sounding grumpy. It wasn't endearing in the least, and when he leaned closer she backed up against the crumbling whitewashed school wall, her elbows bent into it so that her hands stuck out in front. His breath smelled -- and felt, a bit -- like Marmite, even at this distance.

"I'm not ready," H lied. She had felt ready to kiss and be kissed for two years, since she'd been twelve and Heck's handsomeness, burnished by a trip to Zimbabwe, had struck her more as inspiration than as merely observation. Heck and she had been talking nearly once a week while he'd been travelling, albeit sometimes just an "All right?" exchange of text messages. Even those made her feel like she had his arm round her again.

Natesh's previous sweetness had become more bitter, though, like sugar that had been overly caramelised. He made a disgusted sound, but there was hurt in his voice. "Yeah, how long you think that'll take?"

Eying him sympathetically, she reached for his hand. "I do like you --"

"As a mate is all, right?" He yanked his arm free, the brightness in his eyes like a dying star. "I don't need any more bloody mates."

"Natesh," she started.

"No. Keep your liking. Save it for the other guy or girl or whatever alien stuff you've been waiting for."

Natesh stalked off, and she let him, too stunned that he'd sussed her to respond.

~*~*~

{2023}

"Right, of course," Heck agrees. "Time does fly when you're turning into an old bastard like me."

She clucks her tongue and knows she's smiling now. "You aren't . . . old."

"There's cheek for you!" He flicks at her literal cheek.

His fingertips were icy, but the blood rushes to her face. Everything in her wants to be near him. "Some things don't change even with age."

He nods. "So, you want to come have a cuppa at my hotel? I know we're both queued for the film, but I think it sounds like utter shite. I only came out tonight because I was bored at home and wanted to splash round in some of these lovely puddles."

"You know that water's filthy and frigid, right?" She doesn't verbally draw the line to him getting cold feet.

The way he turns then, offering his elbow but only a profile view of his face, suggests he's made the connection himself. Quietly he says, "You always were the smart one."

~*~*~

{2013}

"I know what I want," H said into Skype.

Shifting closer to his screen, Heck propped his chin on his hands, and Himalayan peaks blurred briefly into view far behind him. "Lay it on me."

She grins. "Exactly!"

The picture wasn't good enough quality for her to see him blinking; she just knew that he was from the tilt of his head. "Wait, what?"

"For my sixteenth next month, I want you to lay one on me. Kiss me," she clarified matter-of-factly. It was a good thing Skype tech didn't register heartbeats yet.

He spent a full two minutes coughing -- and insisting, "Really, not laughing."

"It's for **luck**, you prat," she finally managed to say loud enough for him to hear over the not-laughter. She wondered what about the idea of kissing made her such a liar.

The sleeves of his ribbed sweater were so long, they turned his hands into caterpillars. When he stretched and the sleeves rode up his arms, she half-expected butterflies to emerge from his fists. He did say magic words: "Anything for you. I'll be there, soon as I can."  


*

Her birthday came, with her parents and sister and Luce and friends, and no Heck. She thought he was disappointing her -- or avoiding Rachel and Luce, and that was probably at least partly true. He and Rach had eventually got to being friends again, but it wasn't, couldn't be the same. H had never thought before then, though, that it could change how Heck was with her.

Near midnight she'd slipped into a nightshirt and gone to bed, all mental effort on trying to stop thinking about him long enough to fall asleep, when she heard tapping at the glass. It didn't even occur to her that it could be anyone else. She leapt up, switched on the desk lamp, and pulled the curtain aside enough to prise up the window. He'd climbed up the fire escape.

She waited for him to apologise or explain, but he didn't say a word, only looked at her steadily. Light glinted in his eyes, and her skin felt tight from the contrast of his heating gaze and the cool night breeze. The corner of his mouth tipped upward for the barest second. Then he cupped his hands round her face and pressed his lips urgently to hers, like a supplicant hoping for a taste of her soul.

Shivering, H wrapped her arms about him inside his coat. He pulled himself away from her, though, entirely too abruptly. While she caught herself on the window frame, he tumbled halfway down the creaking iron stairs.

She cried out in shock before slapping a hand over her mouth, afraid she'd wakened the rest of the household.

Heck stood up laughing, and limped -- mostly for effect, she hoped -- down the remaining stairs. Before disappearing round the building, he whisper-shouted reassurance. "I'm okay! I'm okay. I wish you better luck. Happy birthday, babe."

~*~*~

{2023}

Snow begins to fall on their walk to Heck's hotel, a bizarrely early snow for the year. It slides wetly down her cheeks. H stops walking, forcing Heck to stop, too, and she presses a hand to her cheek, gone cold again by now.

He stares with a concerned look. "You weren't crying, were you?"

"It's **snowing**," she replies.

She tips back her head and sticks out her tongue. She catches a few flakes, and catches him watching, more intently now. Heat curls in her stomach while the snow melts quickly in her mouth, a far warmer puddle than he'd been considering exploring earlier.

"Try it." She again sticks out her tongue.

"Er, not right now, thanks," he mutters, and resumes walking.

~*~*~

{2015}

Heck's latest book had just debuted on the travel bestseller list, and he invited her over to celebrate with a B-movie marathon at the flat he still kept then. It wasn't the he-and-Rachel flat but a smaller one-level on the ground floor.

"I never doubted this'd be another brilliant success," she said when he opened the door.

He bowed deeply. "Thank you, thank you. Now, let's stuff that talk and have some popcorn while facing these terrible -- and I mean that in every sense -- beasts."

They piled onto his sofa together, his arm round her shoulder and his breath stirring her hair. Their hands kept meeting in the popcorn bowl, butter slicking the contact into something easier when she kept wanting their fingers to tangle.

She fell asleep in his arms and woke to the sound of grunts and groans from the telly, on a porn channel from where they'd squished the remote in sleep.

When she tilted her head, her lips nearly brushed Heck's, which were slack from what must have been a dream. She felt his hand warm on her shirt over her ribcage, in the space between softer places, and was filled with remembrance of his mouth devouring hers so briefly. She wanted him so badly but remembered as well how he'd withdrawn on her sixteenth.

Without even waking him or turning off the telly, she fled home. She jilled herself until she fell back asleep imagining what it might've been like simply to have woken him with her kiss and shagged him right on the sofa like a quite dirty Sleeping Beauty.

She ignored his silly-toned, still half-asleep voice mail the next morning: "You legged it away from the Ts and As after the Bs, I see, H. Help, I'm drowning in letters. Glubglubglubglublove."

~*~*~

{2023)

H sits far away from Heck on his hotel room's sofa, clips back her hair, and says, "We're having this out."

"Oh, you've decided that, have you?" he responds wryly. At least he hasn't pretended to misunderstand.

"I have." Folding her arms, she tries to pin him with her gaze, to keep down those butterflies. "So what if you were married to my sister for a little while?"

"Didn't we ever agree not to discuss that?"

"No, why would we have done? Did you think of Rachel the times we kissed or when you held me?"

"Christ, no!" he asserts. "You're nothing alike. Well, other than that one little thing you do with your tongue . . . sorry, no, sorry, terrible joke."

He has to duck a pillow. She's tempted to throw another before he continues.

"Sorry! I swear, you're nothing alike, and I wasn't thinking of her." He sighs, avoiding her eyes. "You, though, I haven't been able to keep out of my damn mind."

"Then, what the hell have you been doing, trying to stay out of my damn life the past six years, barely even ringing or messaging anymore?"

He scrubs a hand through his hair, and she absently notes a quicksilver flash of age to its color. "I don't -- it just won't work, all right, babe?"

She groans in exasperation. "That's complete bollocks, and you know it, Hector."

He half-laughs at her use of his full name, half-chokes at the fire she's sure is in her eyes.

"And quit calling me 'babe.' I'm not 8 anymore." She stands, casually tugs off her cardigan and camisole, and takes a deep breath without even thinking about how it will lift her breasts in the navy satin cups -- but Heck certainly notices.

"I can see that."

Digging her teeth into her lower lip to bury the smirk, she stands up and slides out of her jeans, too. His hands reach reflexively toward her, maybe to stop her, maybe to frame her curves. He jerks his head sideways as though imagining a slap or maybe her father policing Heck's thoughts about her.

Voice low and rough, Heck asks, "What should I call you? 'Henrietta'?"

"Don't be daft -- if you can at all help it anymore. Even if you are just as lonely as you were eighteen years ago, I'm not proposing marriage. Just shut up and kiss me, Heck. Love me."

"I lied, you know." He tucks his hands into his pockets.

She's beginning to feel cold, waiting so bared. "You've missed your cue."

He shakes his head. "No, let me do this. I'm useless at speeches, but I owe you --"

"It's not about **owing**, Heck, and if you don't get that --"

"It's your turn to quiet, H. Please." He grabs her a robe from his bathroom.

She slips into it, untied, and holds her breath.

~*~*~

{2017}

She'd considered tying a ribbon round her chest, but that wasn't quite right; a bow in her hair would've hashed her attempts to look more mature. She'd settled on brushing out her straight hair into a soft curtain, behind which she refused to hide, even once Heck was at the door to her flat.

"My flatmate's gone for weekend," she said without preamble.

"Okay." His smile was uncomprehending, at least on the surface. "Your last text was rather insistent, so, I'm here, but I only have the couple hours' layover before the second leg of my trip out to Boston. The flight from Prague was horrendous and --"

"We should use all the time we have, then, shouldn't we?" She pushed him down onto her wide, leather armchair; straddled him; and kissed him full-on.

His mouth was so taut and unmoving, she thought all her fantasies had overwritten her real memories. Slowly he relaxed, though, kissing her in return. His tongue slid against her lower lip and unzipped her want, and she dived into it, fell further into the kiss and his wide open eyes. Each of the next several minutes exploded into a year of pleasure and desire. Murmuring his name, she dropped her hand to his lap.

He groaned, his hips lifting toward her touch. Then he blinked and lost his lovely meltiness, like holiday chocolate left drying out on a marble counter too long. He was gone even before he got out the door.

~*~*~

{2023}

"I didn't go out for puddles tonight, of course; I went because I rang your mum, and she told me where you'd be. You took so long to get there, though, I started worrying I'd actually have to see that crap film," Heck says, with a slight grin. "I would've sat through it still hoping to catch you afterward. Look, I know you're not your sister. I was afraid for a long time that I wanted you because I was used to you and your family. And I am used to you, but not like . . . not like a coat that's just there, warm and familiar and worn to fraying. You, you're always surprising me with your questions, your kisses, your belief in me, your abandoning me to porn when I was awake and thinking . . . "

"What, Heck? Out there, that's virgin snow, although I've always found it a weird term." She points at the window and the flakes lazily falling beyond it to blanket the ground, before sweeping her hand in front of herself. "This, right here, is not. We both of us tried making a go with other people."

He gives her a rueful look. "I was thinking how gorgeous you were. And how bloody young. When you kissed me six years ago, I panicked. You're still so young -- no, I know what you're going to say. Just wait. You're still so young, but I don't care anymore. I may be a bastard, but I'm not old yet, and I'm used to you like I am to the inevitability of flowers popping up in the spring. The seeds got planted so long ago, while they grew, I've just been living in amazement at the riot of colors and beauty. Without even realising, I got used to loving and being in love with you."

She huffs out a little laugh, exhaling at last. She lets the robe fall from her shoulders. "Took you long enough. You know, there are flowers that bloom all year, and at night as well. You just have to learn how and when to care for them properly."

"I know." Then he's out of his hastily discarded shirt and trousers, and into her open arms.

At the edge, she's ready to fall, to keep falling forever, if he'll only go with her. His cautious breaths quicken with every press of their lips, every touch of tongue to tongue and fingers to electrified skin, and she smells again the thyme and heat and time, endless possibilities.

She thinks it's a trick of her imagination at first, but after a moment she's certain.

\- end - 


End file.
